Tuesday, August 12, 2014

As soon as I heard the awful news last night, I texted my cousin Alex, "Robin Williams. Fuck."

Almost immediately, I got the reply, "Noooooo!"
"Yep. Suicide"
"Wow"

We grew up with Robin Williams, guest appearances on Happy Days, Mork and Mindy, The Tonight Show, The World According to Garp, Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poet's Society, Comic Relief. He was our funny man. Alex and I loved The World According to Garp. It's a damn fine movie. But now the funny guy of our childhood is gone. Taken by the awful disease of depression.

This morning, Bryan Ferry's version of Bob Dylan's Dream played on my iPod. As I listened to the lyrics and thought about Robin Williams, I thought about my friends.

While riding on a train goin’ west
I fell asleep for to take my rest
I dreamed a dream that made me sad
Concerning myself and the first few friends I had

With half-damp eyes I stared to the room
Where my friends and I spent many an afternoon
Where we together weathered many a storm
Laughin’ and singin’ till the early hours of the morn

By the old wooden stove where our hats was hung
Our words were told, our songs were sung
Where we longed for nothin’ and were quite satisfied
Talkin’ and a-jokin’ about the world outside

With haunted hearts through the heat and cold
We never thought we could ever get old
We thought we could sit forever in fun
But our chances really was a million to one

As easy it was to tell black from white
It was all that easy to tell wrong from right
And our choices were few and the thought never hit
That the one road we traveled would ever shatter and split

How many a year has passed and gone
And many a gamble has been lost and won
And many a road taken by many a friend
And each one I’ve never seen again

I wish, I wish, I wish in vain
That we could sit simply in that room again
Ten thousand dollars at the drop of a hat
I’d give it all gladly if our lives could be like that

As I thought about the words to that song and the friends I shared adolescence with, I thought about all those times we hung out together in the parking lot of a donut shop at 2 a.m. arguing about stars and whether time really existed. I suppose when you're a teenager, it's not so hard to think time doesn't exist. It seems like all you have is time, even though it's rushing past you so fast you don't even know it. And then your friends are mostly gone - off to college, off to start families, moving away to start their own lives. You walk into the room and hear that one of the constants in your youth has died and you realize that the time you have is precious. It hits you that the best thing that you can do with that little time you have is to cherish those around you, those childhood friends you share things with that you share with no others. Because some of them might well be gone too soon, too. One of mine already is.

If we could simply sit in that parking lot (room) again, we'd raise a toast to Robin Williams, and to each other. I'd gladly give ten thousand dollars at the drop of hat, if we could only do that.

About Me

Research Scientist at Monsanto with a passion in sustainable agriculture and helping small stakeholder farmers in the developing world. All opinions expressed or implied are my own and do not represent the position of Monsanto.

Over 20 years bench experience studying protein structure, folding, and
design. Early work was on determinants of protein secondary structure
from a computational approach. The bulk of my lab work has focused on
the structure and function of bacterial protein toxins, mainly on the
endotoxins produced by Bacillus thuringiensis and their insecticidal
activities. Related to that work I have an interest in the biophysics of
membranes and how they interact with proteins.

During my research time at the bench, I have become a recognized leader
in building science-based platforms as well as a leading developer of
people. I successfully built a protein design group and then wholly
integrated a broad protein science platform of 35+ people. I then moved
outside of my area of technical expertise and built a cell biology
platform of 35+ people working in all areas of plant cell biology, RNA
biology, and genome modification biology. My current task is integrating
a platform of 40+ scientists in the areas of cell biology and
analytical chemistry.

Outside of direct technical scientific work, I am deeply passionate
about the role of agriculture in helping to eliminate extreme poverty
and in building a sustainable world for small stakeholder farmers in
Africa. Providing the broad set of modern agricultural tools to poor
farmers will provide them with the means to not only feed their
families, but to also participate in the broader economy to raise
themselves out of poverty. Where you live should not determine whether
you live and I am pleased to work with the ONE Campaign to help bring
about this change for Sub-Saharan Africa.